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Sunday, 23 February 2014

Seven Shades of Seriousness ..

Seriousness, sure, is a very serious disease.To make matters worse, its a contagious disease that many of our social constituents pollinate on unsuspecting hearts & minds.And, I have observed that, seriousness, often, if not always, fails to redress or solve anything in life. It only compounds underlying difficulties.Humor, on the other hand, seems God's way of equipping us to cruise through it all. So, this post is my funny take of my encounters with someone or something whose condition is serious - put in Hindi, 'jiski condition serious hai' :-)Encounters, to me, include observing them and developing perspectives about them, as well :)

I have created each illustration to demonstrate my concept of why I think the underlying person / thing / entity's condition is serious. In doing so, wherever I have taken images from the public domain, for use in my overall illustration, sources have been duly credited underneath each illustration.Some components that I made myself, entirely, from scratch, are proudly illustrated with a magnifying glass effect; so, here we go for the above illustration:

It confounds me that, being a tropical country, where the Sun rules at least 80% of the country 80% of the time, we don't seriously tap solar energy for our transportation needs and instead, end up importing crude oil, thereby inflicting seriousness onto the Indian Rupee's condition.Let's continue to see how the Indian Rupee's condition is further serious:

As we can see, though the Indian Rupee's #ConditionSeriousHai, but the Rupee is very upbeat about its recovery because the Rupee loves the new Doctor recently in charge of its recovery. Quite nice, because I like the Doctor too :) Got it? An adoring and trusting equation with one's doctor can,by itself, cause a placebo effect and help heal and recover much faster, as we know. So, three cheers to the Indian Rupee's future and the Doctor Governor who is in charge of it!With that, let's move to the second shade of seriousness:2. The Indian Family:For a Nation steeped in our family values & culture, just see how serious this entity called 'The Indian Family' is:From a glorious past, here is where I see the Indian Family has traveled from & through to stand as it does today:

See what i mean? Ain't it a cool chill pill?Now that we are lighthearted yet again, here is one very uniquely Indian way of how the great Indian Family will overcome its serious condition:'Jugaad' or what is uniquely an Indian method of creative problem solving!

Time for the third shade of seriousness:3. Indian Cricket:Well, being a passionate sports fan myself, i can guarantee that 'Cricket' in this Country is not just passion or obsession - its nearly a religion!Here's my funny take on what ails Indian Cricket and how its condition is serious:

Do you notice the dressing room and the shirts? I have worked on the original image to produce the cricketer's jersey that actually reads 'Hara India' that, in Hindi, stands for 'defeated India' :(In my view, if Indian Cricket's #ConditionSeriousHai continues for too long, then, IPL may well end up as 'Indian Patients League', what say?Over to the fourth shade of seriousness:4. Angry Birds:Yes, in the land of games, we are!Angry Birds, once the unquestioned ruler of the game land, has since, to use its own in-game terminology, suffered a 'birdquake' and has been crushed by candies!This is my lighthearted take on this truly serious development of 'Angry Birds' being eclipsed in every way by 'Candy Crush Saga':

As an ardent Candy Crush Saga player, I immensely enjoyed creating this below component from scratch, taking shots of the bridge, the lolly pop hammer and the candies & later my favorite cute little plane :) Only the pigs & angry birds were used from the aforesaid sources - but i have worked on the birds further, to show them in blue eyed tears :)In the day & time of 24 by 7 news and LIVE! coverage, here is my lighthearted LIVE! coverage from The Bubblegum Bridge:

Yes, the wingless angry birds are drowning, unable to take off to the next level. The smirking pigs are escaping whilst the candies & the lolly pop hammer stand guard :)Seriously, whilst Angry birds, in my view, has not taken off to the next level as a game and franchise, Candy Crush Saga has scaled great heights endearing itself to millions worldwide, across gadgets and platforms, much represented by this cute little plane that ferries us from one episodic level to another in this game with 400 levels:

Let's bring on the fifth and sixth shades of seriousness, much in the same breadth. Because, their woes are akin. They are melting alike!5. The Global Environment and 6. The Global Economy:

Here is a magnified view of 'The World That Was' & 'The World Now':I created this below illustration component from scratch, drawing by hand (except for the lamp which was from the aforesaid source) & would love to draw your attention, in particular, to the 'Derivative$' - yes, ending with $ :)

To me, the Global Economy's #ConditionSeriousHai because the founding social pillars Legislature, Executive and Judiciary have lost out to:(i) leaders, across spheres, reverse funneling welfare away from the people, eclipsing law in the process(ii) bureaucracy that is forever on display in every nook and corner, and,(iii) derivatives becoming the mass financial weapons of destruction in recent times (which is why you see a blast coming out of an otherwise well-wishing lamp, engulfing the global economy ultimately). ah ah, remember, its a 'No Entry' zone for seriousness.. time to pause!So, please allow me to entertain you with some fond jokes I have recently heard:Joke 1:This is an original joke an agriculturist told me during the recent 'Pongal' harvest festival (which is celebrated as 'Makar Sankranti' in the North of India and as 'Pongal' in my home State in mid January); i have illustrated the joke here.Farmers were curious when they found a certain farmer's cattle recently wearing a mobile phone around its neck:

I love this :-PThis sequence is worth a magnified look (I have used images from the aforesaid sources and worked on them):

Hope that made you laugh :)Now that the mood is hopefully lighter, let's move onto the last shade of seriousness.7. Bitcoin:Life is a cycle. Look no further for proof. I began my shades of seriousness with a (real) currency and will end it with a currency - albeit virtual :)Bitcoin, my favorite virtual currency is in serious trouble. These illustrations I created will help us understand how its #ConditionsSeriousHai:

So, as we can see from my illustrations, the Bitcoin is in serious trouble - from being hoarded thereby creating a digital mattress effect to being warned by the Central Banks!

I personally, being unashamedly geek, love Bitcoin for its disruptive value (after all, every addition to our lives over the last few decades started out as a disruptive technological entrant)! But, I mourn that its #ConditionSeriousHai !!Here's hoping & wishing that its advantages prevail over its troubles ..hmm..Those are my seven shades of seriousness. Hope you enjoy :)I immensely loved creating the illustrations and this post - ideating, looking for images, creating some images from scratch, creating each of the overall illustrations and articulating about my shades of #ConditionSeriousHai :)For all the significant investment herein, my view that humor is the only antidote to seriousness, stands doubly reinforced. And absolutely loved this rather unique oxymoron of a blog post - depicting seriousness through humor!On that note, how can I end this post on any note, other than a joke?Well, we all have our tryst with the 'Device Manager' but ever wondered how it may have got its name?

Here is my friend's take: the 'Device Manager' must have evolved as a name from 'The Vice' manager, which in brief lingo can be written as 'D Vice' manager :)

I bet you agree :) I do!This post is written for the IndiBlogger Cadbury 5 Star #CONDITIONSERIOUSHAI campaign.Cheers :)Notes: Copyright clarification: I have created each illustration in this post and hence the copyright for the entire illustration as such - idea, concept as well as presentation - rests with me. Underlying images used from the public domain are gratefully acknowledged and have been credited to their respective source(s) and the copyright for these rests with their respective owner(s).